Jump to content
Why become a member? ×

Oxblood

Member
  • Posts

    207
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Recent Profile Visitors

The recent visitors block is disabled and is not being shown to other users.

Oxblood's Achievements

Contributor

Contributor (4/14)

3

Total Watts

  1. Having recently taken delivery of a pair of BFM Omni10.5 Crossfire cabs from Thumper, I can report that I am a very happy and satisfied customer. Their performance exceeds even my best hopes, and the build quality, attention to detail and standard of finish of the cabs is excellent. Indeed, to quote the reaction of Bill Fitzmaurice himself: [i]"The build quality looks every bit as good as Eden on the exterior, and undoubtably it's a fair sight better inside where it counts."[/i] Throughout the build process, I was consulted regularly and kept fully informed as to progress, and from start to finish all dealings were transacted in a thoroughly open, honest, friendly and businesslike manner - none of which came as any surprise to me, as such conduct is entirely typical of the man I know and respect.
  2. [quote name='paul, the' post='63852' date='Sep 21 2007, 10:35 PM'][url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Mania-VTB-4BS-thru-neck-active-Bass-guitar-TKL-case_W0QQitemZ230172707130"]This[/url] will be a good buy.[/quote] I know - I JUST BOUGHT IT ! Gotta wait 'till the cheque clears before I can get me hands on it, though.
  3. I once saw a 'real' Stingray and an OLP hanging next to each other in a shop. The differences were immediately and shockingly obvious - chief of which was the thickness of the body. The Stingray's body was half as thick again as that of the OLP. If you're looking for a Sub, this one's just popped up on eBay. Looks like it's in nice condition, too: [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/MusicMan-Sub-Bass-4-String-Burgundy_W0QQitemZ160158005831QQihZ006QQcategoryZ4713QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem"]eBay listing[/url] ...or there's an even nicer graphite-finish one from Road Dog, one of our very own BC members (so you can bet he'll be a decent bloke and it'll have been looked after ) [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320159466747"]Road Dog's eBay listing[/url]
  4. Welcome to Basschat, Doctor. I assume that you'll have read the forum Terms & Conditions before posting, yes? Therefore, you will already be aware that Basschat is run as a Marxist collective, and in signing up as a member, you have agreed to be governed by the forum's fundamental precept: i.e. that all basses in a member's possession at the time of joining the forum automatically become the property of the forum membership as a whole. Just thought I'd mention that. You can start boxing them up now. I'll be over to collect tomorrow morning.
  5. 1) Does the whistle go away if you turn down the volume control(s) of whatever bass is plugged in? If it does, then most likely it's just some environmental interference being picked up by the bass itself, and you'll just have to live with it. If it doesn't, then the problem's either in the amp or the lead connecting the bass to the amp. 2) Does the whistle appear regardless of where you're playing - at every gig, etc - or have you only noticed it at one particular venue/rehearsal space? If it occurs in only one place, then some new piece of electrical equipment in the local vicinity (in a neighbouring building...a mobile phone mast...anything!) is putting out interference. If it happens everywhere you play, then it's more likely to be indicative of a fault with your amp or cable. As to why it only appears on the PA: I'm guessing here, but if it's a high-pitched whistle, it may only appear to be coming out of the PA because your own rig's speakers aren't able to reproduce frequencies that high - or maybe the output stage of your amp is managing somehow to filter it out. You're not alone! When I'm at home, the bridge p/up of my Rick 4003 (single coil, non-humbucking) picks up a weird high-pitched sound like someone playing a spooky diminished chord on a Hammond organ with vibrato. It's been over two years now, and I've never been able to establish where it's coming from!
  6. [quote name='warwickhunt' post='57285' date='Sep 8 2007, 08:23 AM']Unless the physics are different for valve amps....[/quote] Alas, they are (they bloody would be, wouldn't they!) As we all know, with a solid state amp, a higher speaker impedance merely results in less power ouput. But for an amp with a valve output stage, correct impedance matching is important. Power transistors are marvellously efficient devices. With their very low output impedance, they can deliver current by the bucketload, so they can be connected pretty much directly to the speaker (they only need a capacitor in the way to block the DC). Valves, on the other hand, have very high output impedance, and are awfully inefficient. They suck lots of power from the power supply, but even under ideal conditions only manage to convert maybe 50% of it into power that can be used (via the 'gearbox' of the output transformer) to drive the speakers. The other 50% is thrown away as heat. Making power valves work into a higher impedance than they're designed for (as when running an 8 Ohm speaker off a 4 Ohm tap) makes them even less efficient. Result: less of the power gets to the speaker, and more is turned into heat. You can see where this is heading, can't you? Those output valves are now running hotter than ever - hotter than is healthy for them. The results may not be immediately catastrophic: if you're lucky, you might get away with it for quite a while. It will depend on how close to their working limits the amp designer has chosen to run them in the first place (and most designers of high-powered instrument amps like to make them work HARD). At best, though, their lifespan will be shortened. Now what about the other scenario: where you have your cabs chained,and the speaker cable to the first cab fails. This is the worst case of all. There will now be no load on the amp's output at all (i.e. an infinitely high impedance). If this happens you'd better hope that the amp designer has built in a protection circuit of some sort that cuts off the juice. With no load to dump power into and no protection circuit to save the day, the valves will produce enormous signal voltages which will damage the (very expensive) output transformer, and eventually the anodes of the valves will go into meltdown! :( ADDED LATER: Re. the opposite scenario - short-circuit of the speaker output: This is fatal for solid state amps, but it does no harm at all to a valve amp.
  7. [quote name='BassBalls' post='57101' date='Sep 7 2007, 05:11 PM']Here is a pic of the blemishes on the valves. [attachment=2152:Photo_0316.jpg][/quote] Phew! Breathe a sigh of relief, BB. Those aren't blemishes: they're "gettering" - a perfectly normal metallic deposit that is formed when the valves are manufactured. In the majority of valves, you see this deposit at the top end of the valve envelope, but not always. With your valves, it's on the sides of the envelope instead. What's gettering (I hear you cry) ? When a valve is manufactured, it's essential to get as pure a vacuum as possible inside the glass envelope. They pump out as much air as they can, but even the most powerful vacuum pump can't get rid of every last molecule of the gases that make up our atmosphere (nitrogen, oxygen, CO2 etc.), so inside the valve, they coat an electrode with a small amount of a barium compound in powder form. Once the glass envelope is sealed, they then pass a large current through this electrode and the barium compound explodes like flashbulb, throwing a thin coating of molten barium metal onto the inside of the glass. Barium is a 'hungry' element: it grabs hold of any molecules of gas that might be left inside there and reacts with them to form other harmless compounds. In this way, the gas molecules are 'eaten up' by the gettering, so they can't pollute the vacuum of the valve.
  8. Any chance you could take a picture of the output valves, so we can see this 'blemishing'? You don't need to have the amp switched on or anything: just take the back off and point a camera at them. If it's just that the printing on the glass has changed colour, don't worry - that's quite normal with some brands.
  9. [quote name='G-bitch' post='55870' date='Sep 5 2007, 12:37 PM']Never mind circuit boards and point to point. What about the fact that it weighs only 20kg? What does that tell you about the transformers used? Sorry but I think that the old adage applies here of "it it's sounds too good to be true, then it proabably isn't"[/quote] Took the very words out of my mouth, there, GB. Well done for actually finding out how much it weighs, too. I couldn't find any mention of weight or dimensions on the Ashton website, or even in the user manual. I wonder if they're doing the class 'D' / switch-mode power supply trick to save cost and weight? If so, that would put me right off. In this price bracket, the Traynor YBA200 would be my preferred option.
  10. This isn't my sale, although the seller lives not far from me. Thought I'd mention it, as Ashborys don't come up that often. He's asking £160: [url="http://www.gumtree.com/london/43/12962743.html"]http://www.gumtree.com/london/43/12962743.html[/url]
  11. Sorry to go off on a bit of a tangent here, but I'd like to relate my own little PAT testing story. For many years, my partner ran the Wardrobe dept that served the Theatre Design courses at a major London college of Art. In the years before PAT testing entered our lives, during each summer break all the workshop machines were checked for electrical safety by the college's own qualified electricians, and as a result there were never any incidents involving electrical safety issues. Then the whole PAT testing thing arrived, and the college authorities paid outside companies to come in and provide the necessary certification tests. In the first week of the new academic year, my partner sat down to use one of the industrial sewing machines. The moment she turned on the motor, it cut out. "Strange," she thought. "...it was working perfectly well when we last used it, and it now has a PAT test certificate proving that it's OK." Before deciding to report it as faulty, she asked me if I would pop in and give it a quick look-over, just in case she'd missed anything obvious. At first I couldn't find anything amiss either - until I checked the fuse in its plug. An industrial sewing machine has a large, powerful motor. Once it is up to normal running speed, it draws 2 Amps. However, like all motors, when it is first switched on it draws a very large inrush current for a fraction of a second. For this reason, all such motorised machines should be fitted with an over-rated fuse to cope with the inrush current. The PAT testing 'expert', whose services had been bought in at considerable expense, having read the "2 Amps" rating printed on the side of the motor, had removed the 13 Amp fuse from the plug and replaced it with a 2 Amp fuse! He had been trained to follow a set of basic procedures using a PAT testing machine, but beyond that, he had no electrical qualifications at all, and not the first idea about how electricity actually works. In the end, the department's own Stage Management crew, who were properly qualified, had to go round and double-check every piece of gear in the place. Moral: Unless it is undertaken by a fully qualified electrician, PAT testing is no more than a bureaucratic box-ticking exercise.
  12. Dunno wot you mean, mate. I just prop up the bar and try not to get in anyone's way. As for the Trace Combo: I'm a valve man meself, but if I can be of any help on the ideas front.... ZPQ: Sorry for stating the bleedin' obvious, but on this amp, is there any way of intercepting the signal path as it passes from the pre-amp to the power stage? If so, you could take a feed off the pre and check if it sounds clean, and maybe feed a line-level signal into the power amp and see what that sounds like. Next blindingly trite observation: it's not the old "dead batteries in my active bass/effects unit" scenario, by any chance? Anyone else got any bright ideas?
  13. [quote name='Musky' post='49195' date='Aug 22 2007, 09:44 PM']Maybe Bass Cellar has upped it's game since I was last in there. I gave up going there after getting fed up with either their total indifference or else being made to feel as welcome as a turd in a swimming pool. Wunjos a couple of doors down is far better, though not bass only so the stock is smaller. Still worth poking your head round the door for some nice oddities they get in though.[/quote] +1000 Dagnabbit, Musky! * - y'took the words right outta my mouth. [i]*(For the nonplussed and persons of a youthful persuasion: this expression was the catchphrase of a popular 1960s cartoon character called Deputy Dawg, whose faithful companion was a Muskrat called Musky - see below.)[/i]
  14. Hi Nick, +1 to Switchcraft - and stop using those over-sized plugs. They're completely unnecessary. It's the spring contacts on the socket that keep the plug in place. A quarter inch jack is a quarter inch jack.
  15. Those first two tracks (couldn't download the last one without getting a plug-in I don't want) are truly excellent, both in the performance and the recording/production sound. "From Me To You": I'd take issue with the vocal harmonies, which stray unnecessarily from the Fab Four's original tune in a way that doesn't improve the song, but apart from that it's a winner. "Chain Of Fools": Spot on, especially the vocals. All in all, a seriously tight, together band that knew what it was doing!
×
×
  • Create New...